Social Work - Lane Worley: Social Work Research

• Research is a process of inquiry.  You should be able to frame your research topic as a question, i.e.:
  • Why are there so many more women than men in the social work profession?
  • How do American social workers interact with their clients compared to Swedish social workers?
• List some search terms you might use.  You will find different books and/or articles depending on which terms you use.
  • ​What are alternative ways that you could phrase these terms? 
  • What kind of language do researchers in the field use versus people in the general public? Examples:
    • Obese vs. Fat vs. Plus-sized
    • Food-insecure households vs. Poor people vs. Low income families
    • Politicians vs. Legislators
• Decide how much information you need.
  • ​How long is your paper / presentation?  
  • How in-depth?
  • Does your topic call for research studies, or will general information suffice?
  • Do you need primary sources?
• String together search terms to narrow your search.  Example:
  • Social workers and Job satisfaction
  • Social work and History and United States

Often reference materials are not in-depth enough to use as citations in college research projects, but they are a very good way to find out what issues are important in your topic area, and they may reference key researchers whose work you should familiarize yourself with.

Below is a search box to the Credo database, which provides online reference articles:

Use the library catalog to find books and e-books on your research topic.  Below is a search box that goes to the library catalog.

Following are some suggested search terms that you can use to search the catalog.  Try stringing them together to get more specific information.

• Social workers
• Social service
• Public policy or Legislation
• Categories of people: Older people or Mentally ill or Parents
• Geographic areas: United States or Texas or Houston (Tex.)
• Types of social work: Medical social work or Child welfare workers
• Social problems or Social conditions
• Public welfare

To use these resources OFF CAMPUS, enter your MyLC login and password when prompted for a login.

Social Service Agencies

If you need ideas when you're picking an agency to research, the following links go to social service resource guides.  Most of them were created for the use of people in need of services, but they can also give you an idea of which agencies are out there.

Job Listings

Job boards for social workers can be a good place to identify agencies that provide social services.